My photos of all that remains of the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo:
You can actually see the Larkin Factory from I-190 on the south end of Buffalo. The area where the building was located is somewhat deserted--a number of boarded-up buildings--although not abandoned. In my second photograph (of the extant retaining wall, which is a somewhat less elegant remnant), you can see the factory off to the left.
I drove in from the east and bore right on Swan to get to the remaining fence pier. This gave me an opportunity to visualize the missing building, which would have sat aside the triangle of land in a fairly arresting way.
I've seen a few sites misunderstand exactly what this remaining piece of one of the most beautiful office buildings ever built is. It's not a remnant of the building itself--it did not "hold up a corner". It is an intact fence pier. Most of the fence itself (as can be seen in the second photo) remains. The reason is evident once you see the site: there is an embankment behind the fence, and it functions as a retaining wall. If it weren't for that fact, there would likely be nothing left of the Larkin Administration Building at all.
I did not actually get out of my car to visit the plaque at the site, as it was quite snowy and I had not brought my boots. This is what is on the plaque:
I always find these accidental relics to be the most poignant. If it weren't for this rather desolate piece of wall, would anyone have a reason to drive down this deserted street any more?
I just learned today that if all goes well, I should have a reason to go to Buffalo on Monday. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been planning to stop by the Larkin Administration Building site for some time to photograph its last remnant. I wanted to make sure I knew where it was, however, so I did a little research.
The Larkin Administration Building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1904 and completed in 1906 to house the offices of the Larkin Soap company. (The huge factory buildings adjoining the offices still exist.) The building was the first office building to be air conditioned. If you've ever been to a building with a multi-story atrium that provides natural light from above, you're looking at the legacy of the Larkin Building. Its interior was what was so revolutionary, especially when it was built.
Just as the Depression was not kind to the Darwin Martin family and eventually resulted in the abandonment of the Martin House, the affairs of Darwin Martin's employer, the Larkin Soap Company, were also in dire straits. The Larkin building was transformed into a retail store in 1939, but sold in 1943. Eventually the building entered foreclosure and was abandoned. The City of Buffalo attempted to sell it several times and considered a variety of alternate uses, including government offices and a recreation centre, but in its abandonment the building was deteriorating.
It was eventually sold for a mere $5000 and demolished in 1950. It apparently was a major pain to tear down--it was very well-built.
Here's what the building looked like alongside the huge factory:
If you head further west along Swan St. in Street View, you can see the remaining fence pier (it was part of the fence that can be seen at the back of the postcard of the offices and factory above) This will be what I'll be visiting next Monday.
You don’t often find ruins and boarded up buildings in downtown Toronto, but until a year and a half ago, you could see one of the city’s oldest buildings at Adelaide and Simcoe St, boarded up and slowly decaying. The group of townhouses known as Bishop’s Block were built around 1829 or 1830, making them some of the oldest extant buildings in Toronto. Their unassuming nature and relative ugliness made them easy to miss—I drove by them hundreds of times before realizing just how old they were. They last saw occupants in the 1970s, but before that were once fashionable middle-class homes in Victorian Toronto and may have even been part of Toronto’s first hotel.
It was that fairly recent discovery that probably saved them—although how much will be saved is up for some debate. They were dismantled, brick by brick, to be resurrected as part of the new Shangri-La hotel now going up on the site. Some fascinating and revealing archaeological excavations also took place on the site.
I found a slightly cheezy but fairly cool set of photos on YouTube that show the building not long before its demise:
The buildings themselves were heavily decayed, and given the articles I’ve read on the project, about the only thing likely to be preserved are facades. (This has been justified on the grounds that the interiors were nothing like what was originally built in the 19th century). The contractor responsible for that part of the project recently completed a more ambitious facading project—the National Building—just up the street from where I work. However, the main architects (ERA) for the Bishop’s Block project are also responsible for the work on two former abandoned sites, the Distillery district and the Carlu, so their historic preservation creds are pretty solid. I’ll be curious to see what emerges.
The National Building was completed in 1926 in the classic Chicago style of early skyscrapers. It never became a complete ruin and had occupants almost right up to the point that it was dismantled, but had apparently been sloppily repaired over the years and, again, was “unsalvageable.” However, the façade had a certain elegance to it and was in keeping with nearby Bay St. architecture, so the decision was made by the architects to save the west and north facades and incorporate them into the building. The facades were carefully dismantled, repaired, and then reerected as part of the new Bay Adelaide Centre.
I’ve taken a couple of photos of the results (although I'll have to post tomorrow as I accidentally deleted them off my new camera). Historical preservation was not really the focus of this particular project, and the whole idea of “facading” as a way to preserve history has not gotten a lot of good press. I do not believe any effort was made to preserve any of the interiors in this particular case. Right now, none of the ground-floor offices are occupied, and the whole structure looks curiously shiny and new.
It should also be noted that just to the south of the National Building was another building of about the same height apparently so forgettable that it doesn’t even appear on Emporis.com. It was torn down floor by floor by welders who carefully took apart its steel frame. You could follow along with the progress as someone had spray-painted the floor numbers prominently on the outside of the structure. This one looked to date from perhaps the 50s and its departure apparently unmourned.
And another “building”—a structure that was a ruin almost from the day it was built—was also torn down. This was the infamous Bay Adelaide Stump:
It was the only remnant of a failed office tower project that was a victim of the recession of the early 90s. I watched this one come down bit by bit from the 10th story lunchroom in my building just to the south and west, and wish I had taken a few photos, as it made a beautiful, if transitory, ruin. Luckily lots of others did.
